My take on Life, Love, and even Grad School

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Monthly Archives: June 2013

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So, this update is about a week late, and I’m currently about a week behind on my writing. Yikes! (My Week 3 update should be posted tomorrow – and I swear, I’ll post something non-WriMo related in July, if not sooner!)

Week 1 was inspiring and fun, but it all started to fall apart during Week 2. Maybe it’s because I started back to work at my summer job (at a grocery store deli and sandwich shop). I graduated at the beginning of May and I took my sweet time getting back behind the deli counter. That allowed me lots of time at the beginning of June for writing. But I’ve just finished working 8 days in a row and it just ate up all of my free time. I would get up in the morning, get ready for work, work from 10am till 7pm, and come home to veg out in front of the TV for a few hours before going to bed. I really don’t know how actual professional people with families and responsibilities manage to do anything that could even remotely be considered fun.

But maybe my suddenly full schedule was only part of the problem. After all, I could have written for an hour each night instead of watching yet another episode of Say Yes To The Dress. I guess I was a bit burnt out after writing over 15,000 words in Week 1. I had two days with no writing at all, and my other days had low word counts. I was still enjoying my story, but my writing was slowing down so much, I was probably averaging 500 words an hour. And I didn’t have the energy to write for longer than that.

Thankfully, I had a head start going into Week 2, so I was able to stay ahead of where I should have been on the word count (shown in white). And… I hit the 25,000 word mark! I’m half way there! What a confidence booster!

Unfortunately, my decreasing word count carried into Week 3. Stay tuned to find out if I managed to turn it around, or just continued to fall further behind!

Week one of JuNoWriMo has come to an end and I am feeling great! It is definitely a challenge and I’ve had to buckle down on writing every day, but my word count is right on track and I’m so happy with my story.

I actually started writing my novel a year ago, for a class I was taking while studying abroad in England. I wrote a bit last summer and a bit last month. But I’ve written more than twice as much over the past seven days than the entire past year. So far JuNoWriMo has been just the motivation I need to get this novel done.

My current word count is 16,550, I wrote about 4,500 of that before June 1st, so technically I’ve written about 12,050 this week (and I haven’t done my writing for today yet). That’s ahead of schedule! As someone who identifies as a chronic procrastination, I am very proud.

My Story:

Sierra White has two days to complete eleven tasks before her twenty-fourth birthday. With the help of a homeless man and a preppy coworker, will Sierra be able to overcome the dark spot on her past and finally finish the list that her dead sister helped write?

Struggles:

1) I can already tell that I’m going to have trouble reaching the 50,000 word mark. Not because I’m not writing enough, but because I’m going to run out of story. I’ve already written 75% of what I have plotted, but I’ve only written 33% of my word count! My story only takes place over two days, so it’s really difficult to stretch that word count.

2) I’ve had a few problems with the plot and timeline. Certain things just working how I planned, but I’ve managed to change my story to make it work for the most part. Some of my problems have stemmed from lack of planning and me not knowing my characters’ back stories well enough. Those are just things I’m going to have to fill in as I go and work out in the revision process.

Triumphs:

Sometimes it’s hard to get myself writing, but an hour later I can’t get myself to stop. I’ve stayed up late writing, not because I need to hit my word count, but because I’m enjoying it. I’m so proud of what I’ve written so far. It’s a first draft for sure, but with a little polishing and a lot of research I really think it can be something great.

I’ve never been able to decide what career path I want to follow, but I’ve known for a very long time that I want to write a book (and get it published!). I am finally making progress toward that goal. And though it’s a long shot, I’ve always been a dreamer, and I can see my dream coming true in the near future!

I graduated from college one month ago, and it was fabulous and wonderful and even a little sad. Suddenly I’m not a student anymore. And that’s a bit jarring.

I’ve been trying to adjust to this new life; even though it’s really not any different that last summer or the summer before, it feels different. The dynamic with my parents is changing, I’m suddenly worrying about money all the time, I feel so stuck because I’m once again working at the deli and living at home when I really want to move away and start my dream career. And now that I can no longer identify as a student, I’m more confused about who I am than ever before. I’m not even sure I know who I want to be anymore! But then again, did I ever know?

I’m once again thinking about law school. If I’m still stuck a year from now, I will choose law school over deli work in a heartbeat. But is that really what I want to base my future career path on? I think not.

I would love to go into publishing or marketing, but all of the jobs I apply for seem like long shots and I don’t know how to break into the field. I’m also kind of wishing that I had another semester to take all the classes I didn’t have time for over the past four years. I especially wish I could take a computer class and a business class (but no, I do not regret majoring in English and I do not think that my degree can be blamed for my current deli-girl status. I wish I’d done internships and gotten more work experience.)

I just want to know what I’m meant to do with my life so I can get on with it! Is that too much to ask for?! I guess so.

For the first time in my life I’m no longer a student. So it’s time to figure out what I want to be next! That should be exciting, even if it is a little scary.

Maybe you’ve noticed (probably not) that I haven’t been posting very often for the past few months, especially since I graduated from college last month.

So much of what I wrote was about school and being a student. I’ve been a student since I was five, and now suddenly I’m not anymore. And that’s a bit jarring. (There is an upcoming post about this… because I just wrote it. You can tell, I’m back to writing!! I will probably post it within the next few days.)

I haven’t felt inspired to write in a long time. I was trying to maintain my secondary blog (http://adviceforthealmostadult.blogspot.com/) because I put it on my resume and I wanted it to be an example of my writing skills. But I might just scrap it because I feel so guilty about not keeping up with it. Writing out of guilt does not work great for me.

But I’m excited to get back to writing about things that really matter to me. My favorite kind of writing is just rambling on about whatever is on my mind (I’m sure you can tell!). So, expect more of this!

But I also love writing fiction (hence the name of this blog, even though I don’t post fiction nearly as often as I should). So I am resuming work on my hopefully-one-day-novel.

My recent inspiration came from Twitter of all places! I saw the hashtag #JuNoWriMo – as in for NaNoWriMo, but in June! Check out the website here: http://junowrimo.com/

In case you don’t know, NaNoWriMo is basically an encouragement to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. It’s held in November, but as any college or high school student knows, there is NO time in November for novel writing. So I was super excited to for the opportunity to partake during a month that makes so much more sense for me. (Just FYI, JuNoWriMo doesn’t seem to be officially affiliated with NaNoWriMo – which is having their own event in July http://campnanowrimo.org ).

I’m super excited to get back to blogging, and even more excited to finally finish a first draft of a real novel!! I’ll keep you posted on my progress throughout the month of June! If you’ve ever participated in NaNoWriMo or are participating in JuNoWriMo this month or Camp NaNoWriMo in July let me know! I’d love to hear about your struggles and triumphs!